Off -Road Cyclists Flock To Mud Run

DEVIL'S DEN STATE PARK — Off-road cyclists with a taste for racing got more fl avor than they bargained for on Saturday at the 24th annual Northwest Arkansas Mountain Bike Championships at Devil’s Den State Park.

Most licked Devil’s Den mud from their lips during races around the Fossil Flats Trail at the state park located west of Winslow.

Parts of the trail oozed chocolatepudding mud that splotched riders from helmet to pedals after slogging one to four laps around the 6.5-mile loop.

Not that they minded. Most wore the mud like a brown badge of courage during post-race high-fi ving and congratulations.

Sam Pearson of Bentonville summed it up this way: “Everybody out here today is basically 12 years old,” Pearson said. Twelve-year-olds playing in the mud.

“But if we really were 12 we wouldn’t be doing this.”

On a sloppy track, off -road racing is more mud management than speed, Pearson said.

Get on a competitor’s tail and muckflies in your face. Gears get clogged with mud that prevents shifting. The whole track is slick, a wipeout waiting to happen.

“It’s like trying to stand up on ice with STP on top of that,” Pearson said. “It’s amazing how you just slide. You can’t lean into a turn because you just slide right out.

“This is about who can handle the mud the best. Nobody is going for time.” UPS AND DOWNS

The 150 racers on Saturday circled a Fossil Flats Trail that has been redone. It’s longer now, 6.5 miles instead of 5, said Phil Penny with the Ozark Off -Road Cyclists.

The group, all volunteers, did a reroute on Racer’s Hill at the midway point of the trail. Another reroute was completed on the west side of Lee Creek to get the trail from away a stretch that was overly rocky.

One spot the volunteers didn’t mess with is the infamous “Gravity Cavity,” a wicked chasm where riders plunge about 15 feet straight down, then pedal like mad to reach the top. Boulders wait to topple the careless.

It’s a favorite spectator spot at the mountain bike races, like NASCAR fans waiting for a wipeout.

They got one when a young rider went head over handlebars at the bottom of the “Gravity Cavity.” The teenager jumped up, ran his bike to the top and rode off to finish his race.

Emma Drummond, 14, of Springdale took the muddy track in stride to win her race. She even competed up one age category and entered the 19-39 division.

Devil’s Den mud freckled her face after the race. It’s tough rolling through the goop, she said.

“The hills are harder to climb because your tires spin. Everything gets caked up with mud.”

The untrained eye wonders how racers pass each other on a narrow trail through the forest that’s only 2 feet wide, narrower in spots.

“Once you’re right behind someone, they’re supposed to get over, but not everybody does,” Drummond said.

It’s bad etiquette not to let someone pass, she noted. Drummond has been in races where a rider in front won’t yield, but cooperation was the norm on Saturday, she confi rmed.

The transition from riding to racing isn’t hard to make, explained Jimmy Allmon, a racer from Poteau, Okla.

Allmon enjoyed mountain biking for fun. Then a friend talked Allmon into entering his first race, an event at Hobbs State Park-Conservation Area near Rogers.

He took to racing like mud to a knobby tire.

“I fell in love with biking and now it’s my hobby. It’s about all I do,” he said.

Racers zipped along the trail on Saturday, but most visitors to Devil’s Den ride the Fossil Flats Trail at an easy, scenic pace.

Views of the valley that cradles Lee Creek are too pretty to hurry through on a leisurely ride. No wonder the park is one of Arkansas’ premier mountain biking destinations.

There are curvy sections, level stretches and ascents that burn legs and lungs, mud or no mud.